More than just a catalog of things that are known with certainty, it was also an attempt to explain them. At first quite much escaped dependable explanation and was of necessity attributed to "supernatural" causes. It took quite many centuries to move things to the natural category by finding an explanation that could be applied consistently across many and diverse trials.
Newton stunned the world with his natural, consistent explanations of motion, gravitation and other phenomena.
Having scientific explanations had the effect of putting the universe in order making it more predictable. Supernatural explanations were not predictable and left humanity in the care of capricious and elusive entities. Quite many people wanted more science.
Darwin obliged by writing a somewhat suitable explanation of some of nature's more wondrous features, the amazing variety and adaptability of living things. It was not a theory of "spontaneous generation" or the origin of life itself. It was clearly marked as a theory of the origin of species. The knowledge of chemistry and biology at the time did not permit any attempt to explain the origin of life itself by any "natural" means known.
The game however was on and many people hoped to one day extend the theory of the origin of species to the origin of life. To do that would mean that everything in the "supernatural" category would be explained and moved to the "natural" category. At the expense of having no supernatural whatsoever there was yet the prize to seek of an ultimately orderly and predictable universe in human hands.
The attempts were certainly not professional but there were some to render the Bible just a mistake of ignorant shepherds.
Professionals even then understood that there are things "science" can never solve, especially disputes in society. Matters of morality, laws of the state, limits of the state, duties of individuals to whomever or whatever and so on remained and still remain arts, not sciences. They are not solved by staring at bricks of concrete or wildflowers or anything as readily observed. The center of religious activities once about anthropomorphic and capricious deities who caused more trouble for humanity than anything else advanced to abstract ethical systems that benefit humanity with a foundation for morality and law.
When everyone agrees what the problem is, science is often able to solve it. However most issues in society arise because people do not agree what the problem is. If everyone agrees they all want to build a bird house, science can recommend one to attract a specific bird to control a specific insect problem. When people cannot agree whether to build a bird house, a water sprinkler, or a badminton court, science is utterly useless. Issues in society require arts, not sciences. Dealing with the complex and nebulous forces in nature and society such as are the center of modern religious activities would still be necessary even if science could explain the origin of life.
People with especially elementary concepts prefer to approach everything with the certainty science seemed to offer them. Many people can be found on the internet who believe all of society's problems could be solved if people would just abandon religion, which people with elementary concepts could never understand and think has been disproved. Thus arose the "creationism versus evolution" debate. It had nothing to do with professionals in science or religion.
In all that time from ancient Greece to the Scopes trial, science hadn't changed much except that the number of things it could explain by "nature" increased.
Then something happened even moderately intelligent people did not expect. The more information science gained about chemistry and biology the less likely it appeared it would ever find in nature the agency responsible for the first assembly of life on a previously molten Earth.
It was then that the definition of "science" began to change. Today many things are considered "science" that are not at all the sorts of things readily found in nature or studied by ancients Greeks. Rather they are highly speculative theoretical musings with little if any material evidence to support them. What would have been put in the "supernatural" category before is now assumed to deserve a place in the readily observable, explainable, consistent in repeated and diverse trials, sort of "natural" science. It in no way deserves that.
For example many people believe various aspects of relativity have been "proved." However proofs of relativity require velocities, energies and or precision quite beyond the means of the average high school laboratory. Even the Global Positioning Satellite system, many people believe has "proved" relativity, does not encounter differences due to relativity beyond the calibration range of the equipment. That means the equipment can be adjusted to deliver the correct results and afterwards readouts of various other parameters involved can be calibrated to give the readings expected by relativity. Better opportunities to prove relativity such as manned flights to the moon did not employ adequate attention to collecting proof.
In efforts to maintain the illusion that "science" can explain anything and everything, ridiculous claims have been made in the name of science.
Notice that the whole point is lost. The original intention of "science" was to show that the universe has fewer or no surprises, that it is more predictable. The original intention was to remove things from the supernatural category and put them in the natural. Now you have a "science" that says anything is possible and adds to, rather than subtracts from, the list of highly speculative and unpredictable phenomena.
In their increasingly desperate attempts to disprove god people have accepted a "science" with unpredictability and surprises that would make a god blush. There are "physicists" who claim that "nothingness is unstable" and that new universes pop into existence all the time. Of course there is no "science" that even suggests such a possibility. What makes a difference is the choice of meaning of the word "nothing" and whether you can find that anywhere. If things can pop out of it, then it wasn't really "nothing" by definition of the term. All you have done is believe in an eternally existing "something" with stages of more and less simplicity. There's nothing modern about that approach, people have often preferred belief in an eternally existing universe rather than trying to explain how one might originate. No, there is no math that proves something can come from nothing, whatever your definitions. The laws of thermodynamics are the material evidence hard science of the issue. The "Big Bang" theory is just a very highly speculative theory and not one well connected to readily observable phenomena either, and notably not commensurate with multiple big bangs. In order to become "science" in the traditional meaning of the term those highly speculative alternative explanations have to come down to one. They need to show more of their math than they have published since that's how they've escaped correction so far.
Unable to show in "nature" the assembly of first life some "scientists" have claimed that it isn't necessary to show the assembly of first life, that it has always existed throughout eternity and flew to Earth after Earth cooled enough to support life. Notice however that if true that would be a reason to quit teaching evolution in schools since it is no longer required for anything. It would become simply "genetics" if even that.
The faithful are often accused of being gullible, but the blind faith in science lately actually requires more gullibility and a loss of the essential meaning of the word "science." If you think "religious" charlatans are taking people's money you need to see what theoretical physicists can rake in. The truth is that with what they know and a dollar you should get one cup of coffee.
One term for the new science that isn't grounded well in material facts is "superscience" reflecting its replacement of the "supernatural" amateurs have long assumed disproved. Another term is "comic book science" since only very young people find it worthwhile.
Lest it leave anyone confused please note that different things are meant by the word "god." One is the subject of modern religious activities and might mean just the complex and nebulous forces in nature and society required to develop a system of ethics. That certainly exists and requires no further proofs than that it can develop a system of ethics. It would withstand a scientific explanation for the origin of life. Another is literally the "supernatural" such as knowledge of mysterious origin such as acquiring a foreign language without the usual methods of learning one. Proofs of that typically do not go beyond the people who were "there" to witness it. If a child acquires a foreign language by extraordinary means his mother would know it, but the rest of the world would simply believe the child learned by ordinary means. A third meaning is the intelligent designer, which is simply a matter of science with nothing much to offer religion or paranormal studies beyond showing that some things are beyond the reach of science.
It really makes no sense to wait for the discovery of some new element, perhaps stable above the atomic numbers known to be unstable, that can sing the Choral to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony while it assembles life from basic elements alone. That would make the universe less predictable, not more.